Neil Astley founded Bloodaxe Books in 1978 with a "mysterious bale of paper" and a pamphlet, Tristan Crazy, by the late Ken Smith, copies of which he sold for 65p. Now celebrating its 30th anniversary, Bloodaxe has established itself as a fundamental force in British poetry - popular, arresting, outspoken, prolific, running the full gauntlet from Barry MacSweeney to Jean "Binta" Breeze - and Astley has been congratulated (and criticised) for widening both the appeal and the definition of poetry in the UK. He has also launched an anthology for each significant Bloodaxe birthday, and the DVD-book In Person is the latest instalment in this tradition, presenting 30 Bloodaxe poets together in print and on film.

In Person developed out of a project Astley began in 2006 with the film-maker Pamela Robertson-Pearce, in which they would build "an archive of filmed readings by some of the many poets published by Bloodaxe". The choice of poets to film was determined by practical factors, in particular their availability and their age: the death of Stanley Kunitz that summer was a sharp reminder that posterity would not wait for recordings to be made. When it came to selecting poets for this anthology, then, the choice was already limited; but Astley has navigated through these constraints (which, among other things, barred all poets under 45) to assemble a typically catholic crew. There really is something for everyone: the cutting and cut-up satire of Peter Reading, John Agard's hymns to diversity, Selima Hill's funny, frightening trawls through the unconscious. It is especially good to reread David Constantine's "Watching for Dolphins", which, with its melancholic grace, feels like a modern classic: "Day after day // Or on their last opportunity all gazed / Undecided whether a flat calm were favourable / Or a sea the sun and the wind between them raised / To a likeness of dolphins."

Perhaps the danger of turning an archive into an anthology is that it might not change at all: such inclusiveness, though attractive, lacks the editorial perspective that binds an anthology together. But while In Person as a book can feel, for that reason, unremarkable, the accompanying film clips are anything but. Audio recordings have been popularised in the past few years by initiatives such as the Poetry Archive and Oxfam's Life Lines CDs. Audiovisual recordings, however, are rare indeed, and the In Person DVDs offer an unprecedented wealth of footage.

Here is CK Williams, reading a sinuous, shocking piece like "The Gaffe" with tone and timing so perfect you wonder if you ever understood it before. James Berry's assumed patois when he reads "Defendant in a Jamaican Court" brings the voice - "Yes I did chop him, sar" - into terrible life. The excellent Naomi Shihab Nye perches on a staircase, as if to emphasise her poems' gentle refusal of existing phrases, existing positions, her eyebrows dancing between puzzlement and knowledge, and says slowly: "I missed the day / when it was said / others should not have / certain weapons, but we could." There are studious, intense readings by Maura Dooley and Philip Levine, generous, warm performances from Imtiaz Dharker and Menna Elfyn, and WN Herbert singing the entirety of "Bad Shaman Blues". It is an exhilarating, fascinating six hours, rounded off by a special short of Ken Smith frying breakfast in his kitchen, then reading "Three Docklands fragments" against a display of the wooden masks he used to make.

A shame, then, when so many unique poets are assembled, that the format prohibits any more than the odd stray comment on their work (Yang Lian's English introductions to his Chinese poems are a welcome exception to this): with only three hours per DVD, the poets can do little more than read. While this is clearly the main attraction, few people who attend poetry readings do not enjoy the banter, the human aside. Perhaps this desire for personal revelation is satisfied by the glimpsed interiors in which the poets read, those halves of sofas, vistas of curtain, illegible spines of books. Hill stands in a doorway, as if she is ready to bolt. These are incidental details; and yet the intimate, fixed style of Robertson-Pearce's filming elevates them to a new level of importance, just as the spider caught by a convict in one of CD Wright's poems becomes the convict's friend. Inevitably, this close attention also falls on the physical presences of the poets themselves, the faces and voices giving way to one another, which seem to embody what Constantine meant when he wrote, "It is common. You are particular." The "it" refers to death, but might just as well be poetry.

Astley suggests there will be enough footage for another DVD-book within two years. We should all hope Bloodaxe produces it, because In Person is a valuable resource, an enormous pleasure, and a much-needed step into the future. Perhaps other publishing houses will, in time, follow suit. Until then, we can watch Ken Smith reciting "Yuppy Love" with irresistible relish as many times as we like: "Oh my spreadsheet he groans in the night: / my modem my cursor lusting after her floppies / wanting her printout her linkup her entire database."